Bush is right: Iraq is Vietnam all over again, but it's also Russia's Afghanistan

[Ian_rd]

In the book Ghost Wars, an invaluable history for anyone interested in the source and evolution of Islamic terrorism, Steve Coll covers in great detail the involvement of the Soviet Union and the United States in Afghanistan during the communist nation's occupation of the country in the 1980s and our operations to disrupt it.

It is clear that several of our intelligence operatives saw Afghanistan as "pay back" for Vietnam, when the Soviet Union fed weapons, money, and expertise to the Viet Cong guerrillas. Many of our CIA operatives at the time were Vietnam vets, and they took what happened in that war personally.

With the relatively cheap aid the Soviets provided North Vietnam, they sat back and smiled as we shouldered the colossal expense of conducting full-scale war in a manner that would never end. Surely the Soviets wanted us to leave Vietnam, but not too soon. Before we left, the Soviet Union wanted their proxy war to bleed us dry. It worked beautifully.

And when 1979 came around, it was pay back time. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and it was our turn to provide weapons, money, and expertise to the Afghan guerillas, trapping the communists in a full-scale war. We wanted them to leave, but not too soon. First, we would bleed them dry. It worked beautifully.

And now, it's our turn once again to be the mark in the con.

It's been evident to most people with clear vision – for many of us before the war even began – that our invasion of Iraq is a great boon not only to Al Qaeda, but to terrorism itself. How better to encourage a generation of young Muslims to join a violent movement against the United States than by invading a Muslim country under false pretenses, slaughtering scores of its innocents, and then calling the dead "insurgents?"

Bush tells us that we should listen to the words of our enemy. And we should. But Bush is listening with a fool's ears, taking everything Bin Laden says at face value while the Flash Gordon of terrorists sits back and chuckles at how beautifully everything is unfolding for his vision of global jihad.

"Some in our country question whether the battle in Iraq is part of the war on terror. Among the terrorists, there's no doubt. Hear the words of Osama bin Laden: He calls the struggle in Iraq a 'war of destiny.' He proclaimed 'the war is for you or for us to win. If we win it, it means your defeat and disgrace forever.'"

- President George W. Bush, May 2007 (Link)

For a mind as simple as George W. Bush's, especially when threatened with "disgrace" – the thing he fears more than anything else, there's only one possible response to such a bring-it-on, and that is, of course, to bring it. Osama Bin Laden knows as well as we do that our military is headed by a megalomaniacal idiot, and he's wielding George W. Bush as effectively as any other tool in his arsenal.

If the world were a schoolyard, little Osama would be taunting little Georgie in the sand box again and again, saying he's too much of a coward to eat another piece of dog crap. And little Georgie, so insecure and desperate to prove his mettle, stuffs himself full of feces by the handful. But in the real world, instead of eating feces, George W. Bush and our British friends are spending approximately $4,000 per second in Iraq. Tick, tock, tick, tock – that was $16,000 dollars – gone.

The covert support in Vietnam and Afghanistan was always a careful balancing act. The support had to be enough to injure, impede, and eventually defeat the opposing superpower, but not enough to provoke direct confrontation. In Afghanistan, a great deal of our money and weapons bound for the Afghani mujahadeen flowed through the intelligence service of Pakistan, the ISI. If too much went through, the CIA and ISI feared the Soviet Union would respond by invading Pakistan, potentially requiring a military response from us, and next thing you know the nukes are flying. But Osama Bin Laden has no such worries. He has no borders to defend, and no balancing act to perform. All he has to do is say, "I triple-dog dare ya!" and Bush will respond exactly as intended.

Osama Bin Laden is as good a student as any of how we trapped the Soviets into a costly war that could only end badly for them. After all, he was there. In this war, Osama Bin Laden is doing to us in Iraq what we did to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and what the Soviets did to us in Vietnam. He wants us to leave, but not too soon. First, he'll bleed us dry. And it's working beautifully.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

1. And China's

And the rest of the world's too.

Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained; fight not unless the position is critical. If it is to your advantage, make a forward move; if not, stay where you are. Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content.
- Sun Tzu

No leader should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no leader should fight a battle simply out of pique. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life. Hence the enlightened leader is heedful, and the good leader full of caution.
- Sun Tzu quotes